Saturday, November 27, 2010

Shake with ice and strain into a highball glass filled with cracked ice. Top with 1 oz of soda water. Garnish with a mint spring and a lemon zest spiral.

A week and a half ago, I spotted a collection of recipes from New York and San Francisco bartenders on the TastingTable website. On Friday night, after spying that our mint patch was resistant to the killing frosts we have recently experienced in the past few weeks, I decided that we should give Martin Cate's recipe from Smuggler's Cove in San Francisco a try. True, the recipe, the Dead Reckoning, could be made without a mint sprig garnish, but we wanted to experience it as Martin intended it.

The drink was the perfect accompaniment to that night's dinner of Isa Chandra Moskowitz's Tamarind Lentils recipe. The Dead Reckoning's mint and lemon peel garnishes contributed greatly to the drink's aroma. The rich rum was complemented by the maple and port on the sip, and this was followed by a pleasing vanilla and light spice flavor on the swallow. Thinking back, the maple and tawny port combination in Hungry Mother's No. 43 was also a quite solid one. Andrea commented that the drink was "pretty spectacular... and superbly balanced," so between it and the Tamarind Lentils dinner was a success!

2 comments:

I experienced this drink at Smuggler's Cove, last week, and had to find out how to make it at home. Am so happy to see that Martin has shared his recipe and I look forward to trying it out tonight. Easily one of the best rum drinks I have ever had.

Martin has been very generous to the community by being open about most of his recipes. I have heard that there are a few that he keeps as closely guarded house recipes.

I do find it disadvantageous to a bar not to release at least some of their recipes. I am more likely to pick one bar over another in a new town if I have made their drinks at home (or had them at another bar).

who? what?

The euphemisms are getting a bit stale, suffice to say: four people in Boston -- two of whom are much more prolific writers than the other two (including the originator of this blog, who has no excuse apart from laziness) -- who drink and tell.

drink & tell: a boston cocktail book

A collection of drink recipes, techniques, and Boston bar recommendations from Frederic Yarm, one of the authors of the Cocktail Virgin Slut blog. Available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and The Boston Shaker (on their shelves and via their webstore). Follow the buzz on D&T's Facebook fan page!